Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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41. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the status of the EU-British agreement on Brexit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53915/17]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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50. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will report on the legal standing of the joint report from the negotiators of the European Union and the United Kingdom Government on progress during phase 1 of negotiations under Article 50 of the treaty on European Union on the United Kingdom's orderly withdrawal from the European Union; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54102/17]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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53. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his views on Brexit Secretary, David Davis's, comments that the agreement reached in phase 1 of Brexit negotiations is a statement of intent more than anything else. [54105/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 41, 50 and 53 together.

I welcome the Joint Report from the EU and UK negotiators on progress in phase one of the Brexit negotiations, published on 8 December. On Irish-specific issues, the Government achieved the goals we set out to achieve in this phase. They included maintenance of the Common Travel Area, protection of the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts and the gains of the peace process, including avoiding a hard border, and the protection of EU citizenship and other rights.

We were consistently clear in seeking tangible commitments from the UK. We now have a written guarantee that a hard border will be avoided and commitments as to how this will be achieved.

In the event that it is not possible to resolve the border issue as part of a wider EU-UK future relationship agreement, which has always been the Irish Government’s preference, or through specific solutions proposed by the British Government, there is a commitment that the UK will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Customs Union and Single Market which support North South cooperation, the all-island economy and protect the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts. Moreover, such an arrangement must be compatible with the UK’s guarantee of avoiding a hard border, which is an ‘overarching requirement.’

The agreement between the EU and UK on Irish-specific issues set out in the Joint Report represents, as do the other elements of the Progress Report, a set of very strong political commitments and guarantees. These must now be reflected in the Withdrawal Agreement which will be legally binding and must be concluded before the UK’s departure from the EU on 29 March 2019. The Joint Report makes clear that progress in the Phase Two negotiations, including on the framework for future relations between the EU and UK, will only be possible if commitments made in Phase One are being honoured through the elaboration of the formal Withdrawal Agreement.